South-side bus service up, Gay marriage down

UP: South-side bus service. The Madison Metro bus line serving the Alliant Energy Center, Huber Center and neighborhoods south of Olin Avenue is saved from elimination when the town of Madison and Dane County agree to help fund it for an additional year. Metro had asked the town, which had budgeted $85,000 for the service, to chip in an additional $26,000. The town will pay an additional $17,000, with Dane County kicking in the remaining $9,000.

DOWN: Gay marriage. Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess dismisses a lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The suit, filed by William McConkey, a political science professor at UW-Oshkosh, claimed the amendment is illegal because the 2006 referendum posed two different questions to voters whether to outlaw gay marriage and whether to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Niess says both issues are clearly related. McConkey plans to appeal.